


Dutch Courage

by Measured



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2793695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Blood In The Water. Sniper pieces together his grief with alcohol, explosions, and a little help from Demoman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dutch Courage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tooth_and_claw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tooth_and_claw/gifts).



> For toothandclaw in the 2014 Secret Santa. They asked for _Request 5) Sniper depressed, needs cheering up. Gen or porn both good._ Betaed by Multiversecafe. Polish Vodka, or Spirytus is up to 190 proof.

They'd patched up his wounds the best they could with what limited supplies they had. Sniper still felt the ache whenever he moved, but it wasn't the worst injury he'd ever had and lived to tell about it.

Almost as if the last team had gotten rusty along the way. Not that he remembered the fight. Blacked clean out from the pain. He'd been told in patches, but the pain killers still made even those details fuzzy.

The entire motley group in his parent's old house was a tight fit to be sure, though he didn't know where half of them were right now. Last he'd heard, Miss Pauling was giving orders via the phone on the doorstep. It had to be Scout on the line; Heavy would've taken the orders in half the time, without lengthening it out with needless questions. 

The door behind him closed, muffling the sound of Miss Pauling's voice in the other room.

"Aye, you're awake again," Demoman said. He brought out a glass of something amber and surely alcoholic. That was one thing that was sure when it came to him: it would never be just apple juice.

"Now this, this ain't mere Scrumpy. This is fine vodka, and not just any type, the Polish kind. Now _this_ is exactly what ye need."

He poured out the drinks and passed them down. "How ye holdin' up?"

Sniper considered the drink. "I've felt worse," he said.

"If ye say so. Mun-dee, eh?" Demoman said.

Sniper flipped a shell and packed it into his gun. "The name's Mick. The name I had for thirty-nine years, and it's good enough for me."

He pushed his hat off, rubbed at his dry eyes. Little flecks were before his vision for a moment. He downed the shot fast enough to feel the burn, to make the pain become more cloudy and tenuous, far more distant. 

"Careful, now, this is strong," Demoman said.

If Demoman said a drink was strong, then it was enough to knock out some of them in just a few. Demoman only worried about Everclear, Absinthe, Tequila and Polish vodka. Everything else he'd take on with no fears whatsoever. Half of Sniper wished Demoman had faced his fears and come with enough Tequila to leave him flat on the floor where the pain wouldn't find him.

"You ever drink Tequila?" Sniper said.

"Aye, after me father's death, and me first set of parent's death. It'll knock you clean to your arse, leave you wonderin' what your name is by time you wake up in that labyrinth of hangover hell."

"I've been to New Zealand; Hell can't be much worse," Sniper said.

Demoman nodded, and pulled out something from his belt.

"I keep it for emergencies," Demoman said.

"Pour it," Sniper said.

With one last concerned glance, Demoman poured him out a shot like he was working with dangerous chemicals, like one drop to the table might make everything explode around them. 

Sniper cleared his throat. Professionalism and contracts he knew, but emotions were never his strong point. He thought to pat Demoman on the shoulder, but as drunk as they both were headed, Demoman just might cut his arm off with that sword of his. Living with fellow hired killers meant that any sudden surprise was likely to get body parts blown off.

"Sorry to hear about that. No child should have to bury their parents," Sniper said finally.

"Nothin' left to bury of them," Demoman said. "Tis' the life of a demolitions expert. One missed wire and your insides are all over the countryside."

Sniper nodded; there was nothing much he could add. His family had gone slowly, by no fault of his own. Even as their heath had gone downhill, he had refused to see the truth. He'd replaced the IP drops, made dinners when his mother could no longer for months on end. Through the years he'd sent hundreds of postcards and made dozens of calls back. One day, he woke up to silence.

Sniper never been a talky drunk, but six months of silence and the events of the day brought it out of him. The vodka finessed the words out, until he started to sound like Scout, blabbing away his entire life story.

"Real parents ain't all they're cracked up to be. As far as I'm concerned, I had parents, they're deep in the ground now. Thirty-nine years... He never liked my job or understood me, but he never would've left me high and dry. Even if wanted me to be a damn sheep farmer," Sniper said.

He drank it down until he felt more burn, as if the burn could eat away the wounds, cauterize what little hope he'd had that his blood parents would explain anything about himself, would love him.

"Ye found any closure yet?" Demoman said.

"If I ever find those New Zealanders in my riflescope, I won't hesitate to shoot," Sniper said.

Demoman laughed, loud and raucous, the kind of laugh which held nothing back. He clapped Sniper on the shoulder. "That's the spirit! Whatcha need is an explosion. Nothin' heals the heart like watchin' the flames come and engulf everythin'. Kehbooom!"

He was just tipsy enough for it to sound like a good idea. 

*

Sneaking out past Miss Pauling was a piece of stealth worthy of a spy. Or at least it would've been, had they not been leaning on each other and walking down those stairs like a couple of old drunks coming back from a pub.

Miss Pauling was probably looking for them right now---that was, if she ever managed to get off the phone with Scout. She could worry a little more, or drag them down out of the field by their ears. 

But not before they left craters all over the countryside. 

Sniper watched the explosions light over the sky. Red and gold, an inferno of destruction over the desert. Demoman had rigged a mini-Manhattan island, just for him. He leaned against Demoman, drunker than before, until he forgot the pain sunk into his skin, the wounds inside and out. 

"At this rate, we'll be singing as we get back to Respawn," Sniper said.

"Cheers, mate. That's one way to glue ye back together, and that's to blow it all apart first!"

Sniper downed another drink form the bottle, and threw another bomb. Curls of red and gold explosions covered the landscape. Alcohol and explosives might have been a bad combination, but they seemed like just what he needed now.

Let it blow up every bad choice, bad happening, bad luck until everything was rubble. New land, blank and barren to make a new path.

In the glint of the burning flames, like a reflection of the sun, he saw Demoman's smile. Though the haze, he thought, yes, that was true. He hadn't lost everything. Not just yet.

"You got some free time, I'll teach you how to shoot a sniper rifle," he said.

"That's good, that's good...Ye want to mix the chemicals?" Demoman said, hope in his voice.

"Only if I'm drunk enough," Sniper said.

His father---the first one, the real one as far as he was concerned---always said he didn't feel enough, he spent too much time hunting out in the wilderness rather than with the boys or tending the sheep.

"No hard feelings on the tying you up and tryin' to murder you and all," Sniper said.

"Oh, no hard feelins, mate. Wake me up too early and I'd do the same. That moonshine, though," Demoman said. He shuddered. "That moonshine was a _dirty girl_. Introduce me to her again, and I'll take her waltzin' all through the night!" He laughed again. Sniper was beginning to notice something: Demoman laughed too loud at his own jokes.

Just the thought made him smile a bit. Here he always thought human connections and true friendship were complicated and more trouble than they were worth, when they really were just getting drunk and blowing things up. 

Thirty-nine years and his life had only just begun.


End file.
